


Working the Bellows

by Starcrossedsky



Series: Bladework [3]
Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Political AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 15:10:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11854161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: It's hard to know exactly what to make of the boy once called Luke. Maybe talking to him will produce answers, or at least better questions.(Or: Asch and Guy try to be adults at each other, and mostly succeed.)





	Working the Bellows

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: contains discussion of the potential for sexual assault of children (no sexual assault occurred).

When Jade leaves, the whole group seems to relax a little. Something about the colonel seems to keep all of you on your best behaviour - or at least those of you who care. Asch doesn't, apparently, and as a result, he's no more relaxed than you've seen him since the Tartarus.

It's kind of freakish, to be honest, how nothing seems to get him to drop his guard, even for a minute. Even when you were on watch, his _sleep_ seemed guarded, back against the ground and his arms wrapped around his chest. You've never seen anyone sleep like they're expecting to get stabbed before, but you're sure that that's what it must look like.

You don't get it, don't get him, how he went from the kid you remember to what he is now. He was always kind of uptight, sure, but that Luke smiled more than miniscule twitches of the lips and wouldn't have been suspicious of anyone. It doesn't make sense.

Except he makes very sure to stay between you and Tear, and you put a hand to your arm and think, _maybe it does_. "Hey, Asch," you say, casual servant voice in full force, "can we talk?"

He stops and looks at you for a minute, then nods. All of his body language is different from Luke's, you realize; you can't read him the same way, and it's tripping you up. It's worse than trying to learn a new person, because you keep trying to map it to Luke's gestures.

"Somewhere private," he says. "There's a space out behind the inn."

"...Yeah, okay," you say after a minute, because he looks serious, and there are some things that you just don't want Luke to know, yet. Maybe not ever, if you can help it. But Asch - 

If Van has told him, then you need to know. If Van hasn't told him, then he probably _deserves_ to know, even if it means you lose.. Whatever makes him seem to trust you now. 

Even if he _hates_ you, at least you'll know where you stand with him. Trying to do this dance around each other is just frustrating. And then there's Van, and Luke, and everything else to deal with...

No wonder Asch seems to spend all of his time wound tighter than a steel trap, honestly. Just thinking about what's going through his head makes you exhausted.

(Thinking about the amount of deception you performed as a kid, before being Guy became second nature, makes you exhausted. The idea of throwing the fate of the world in on that is worse. You don't think you could handle it.)

Asch leads you around back behind the inn as promised - there's some trees there, and a grassy space that could almost be called a hill in comparison to the flat of the plains. The way Saint Binah has worked nature into the city is amazing, especially in contrast with the steel plating of Baticul, the manor gardens always perfectly, exactly in order. You know you lived here for a while, with Pere, but you don't really remember it much.

The clearing pretty nice-looking, just large enough for a decent sparring match. You briefly consider asking Asch, but then you realize that he'd probably knock you flat on your ass in no time at all. Van's prized student, already getting a reputation to match his father's.

Forcing away a grimace at the thought, you sit down. Asch hesitates a moment before sitting next to you, his knees tented up in front of him to rest his arms on. It makes him look like a kid, or maybe makes you realize that he is _still_ a kid.

Where can you even begin?

"Thanks," you say, after a minute of silence. "For earlier. With Tear."

His eyes are big and green - he's startled, even confused, that you're thanking him. "Don't worry about it," he says. "It was nothing."

He seems pretty awkward about it, and normally, you'd let it go, but - "You're the last person I would have expected to defend me," you say, and it's as good a segway into the past, the things you don't really want to talk about, as any. "The last time we talked about it, from what I remember, you called it stupid and told me to get over it."

Asch snorts. "I'm pretty sure even that's nicer than I was about it back then. I was an ass about it as a kid."

"Heh." If he's owning up to it, you can afford to agree. It's not exactly wrong. "What changed?"

From the way he sucks in a breath, you almost think you asked the wrong question. "What do you think changed?" he asks after a moment, trailing gloved fingers through his hair. "I have the same reaction to fomicry machines or being unable to move. Or _green lights_ , which is easily as stupid."

You consider that. "I guess so. Green lights are a lot less common than women, though."

"Probably a good thing," Asch mutters. " _You_ aren't a risk for solo hyperresonance when you panic."

You wince. "I'm guessing it's not neat little craters when that happens."

"My reputation for coming back to the Order covered in blood actually started with a dumb bastard who thought a thirteen-year-old in a training uniform was easy prey," he says, and there's something chilling about how easily he says it. Like there's nothing particularly notable about having that kind of reputation. "Grabbed me from behind, so he stopped having a head."

Or maybe it's not that casual, after all. He won't look at you as he says it. You remember what he said earlier, about making bodies disappear, and repress wondering if that's how he figured it out. Either way, the guy who grabbed him was probably never found.

"I'm glad you could defend yourself, at least," you say, after a moment's hesitation. "I know that people say... _stuff_ , about the Order - "

"About little boys and girls found under altars?" he says, tone dark and moody. "Most of that sort isn't stupid enough to mess with any kid claimed by the higher-ups, and I was Van's pet student."

You nod. You can do the math, there. At the same time - 

At the _same time_ , you've already heard about horrors you never would have thought Van capable of today, and with pretty damning evidence, besides. "He didn't - "

"He was intent on keeping me _attached_ to him," Asch says, bitterly, angrily, before you can finish. "He was at least smart enough to not add more horrors to the pile, though hell if I know why he thought I would _forget_ who was responsible for the fomicry in the first place."

A tension slides out of your shoulders, and you sigh in relief. Asch keeps talking, still not looking at you, and you let him, because - 

Because who has he had to say any of this to? Ion? The Fon Master is smart, but he's just a kid. Whatever Asch needs to get out has been building up for a long time.

"Like it makes him some kind of _saint_ , that he has a so-called _better_ purpose in mind for me - like I'm some kind of _animal_ that exists to be lead around by the nose! He condemns Father and Uncle to my face for only caring about my power and what I can _do_ for them, but he's the same and worse!" A pause, where Asch sucks air down almost frantically until his breathing levels out again. If he were Luke, you'd be tempted to put an arm around him, but he isn't, so you keep your hands still. "I hate him. I want him dead."

It's probably a lot more complicated than that, but it's impossible to doubt the conviction with which he says it. And unlike your own childish talk of revenge, you don't imagine that Asch's feelings on this will soften as he grows up. He very nearly _is_ grown up, even if he's only seventeen. Van beat the child out of him like a blacksmith crafting a blade.

If you compare him now, all sharp edges, to the child he was (kind of surly, arrogant but honest in his desire to make the world better), it's easy to see why no amount of quenching will cool him down. If anything, it makes you feel like someone turned the bellows on you instead.

You remember when Van came to you, put the idea of revenge in your head, and, Score, you've been every bit as badly manipulated by him as Luke. Taken in by the familiar friendly face and the words that were exactly what you needed to hear - 

Maybe you shouldn't just be angry for Asch-who-was-Luke. Maybe you should be angry for yourself.

Asch has gone silent for a bit, still running his hands through his hair, and finally he says, "What about you?"

Somehow you don't think he's talking about Van. Surely, if he was, his voice wouldn't be so hesitant and nervous. "What?" you say, hoping for some clarification.

"Nobody ever - " He stops, and sucks in a breath. "You were a servant boy, and I know my father has a taste for blonds, _especially_ your mother's family."

Oh. _Oh_. Hell, that's a nightmare you hadn't even considered. It's a nightmare that _Asch_ has considered it, the sort of sickening screwed-up thing that no one should ever have to think. How many nights has _that_ thought kept him up?

"No, no - " you says as fast as you can, swallowing bile. And then your brain catches up to the rest - "Wait, my mother's family? What the hell, Asch?"

He gives you a dead-eyed look for a moment. "What, like I didn't know? Van told me, he used it as a _weapon_ \- "

You suck in a breath. Of course he did. "Right. Had to make sure you knew exactly how everyone you trusted was planning to kill you, I bet."

A nod. Just like that, a fact of life, the way Van broke his trust in everyone. 

"Shit," you say. "I'm amazed you can stand to be in the same room with me."

And he looks at you, and it's... confused, his green eyes nearly crossing. "You obviously gave up on it at _some_ point," he says. "Maybe not to anyone else, but comparing how you treated me to how you treat _him_..."

_You baby him_ , the words come back to you, and you just nod. So much meaning packed into three little words. No wonder Asch looked at Luke so jealously.

"And it's not like I wouldn't have felt the same, in your position," Asch continues. "Am I supposed to be angry about it?"

You swallow a comment about how he seems to be angry about everything else. He is being mature about it, in his own screwed up way, and the least you can do is meet him halfway, instead of throwing childish barbs at him.

"I dunno," you say instead. "I don't think most people forgive someone trying to kill them so easily."

"I've had seven years to deal with it," he says. "And whether you ever really _tried_ or just sat there stewing is debatable."

Okay, yeah, that's a good point. You lean forward, mimicking his elbows-propped-on-knees posture. People tend to relax a little when you do that. "I guess you're right. I didn't have the guts. I just didn't realize it until - " You almost say _until Luke lost his memory,_ , out of pure habit, but manage to catch yourself. "Until I had to deal with a helpless kid."

Asch doesn't react to your near-slip, at least, just nodding. "An infant."

"He sure cried like one," you say, laughing a little. Asch doesn't seem to find it funny, though, so you let the grin drop. "Everyone misses you, though. They don't _know_ , but everyone's always compared him to you."

Asch stays silent, but the scowly face that you think is his default becomes a different sort of frown, more thoughtful.

"Are you going to go back?" you ask, after letting the silence hang for a minute. "After everything, I mean. They'd be happy to have you."

"I don't know," he says. "Too much has changed. And there are plenty of people who wouldn't want me on the throne, anyway, after some of the things I've done."

You don't ask. You probably don't want to know, both as a person who is trying to give him another chance, and knowing that one of the things the Order hates most is Hod survivors. You can hardly call yourself their lord, but you do regard yourself as one of their number.

"What about you?" Asch asks, unknowingly reading your mind. "You've got property in Grand Chokmah still, if you wanted it. It's still under the care of the crown; apparently Peony wants to use it to help Hod survivors."

You snort. "But none are coming forward, I take it."

Asch snorts bitterly. "It'd be painting targets on their backs. The Order has plenty of dirty laundry it wants to keep out of sight for its role in Hod. Malkuth, too."

"Not Kimlasca?" you ask, a bit surprised.

"Everyone already knows about _our_ dirty laundry," Asch says. "Father hung it up in the damn entryway."

He definitely tends to say things straight out, you observe. It's not even that he isn't tactful; he gets straight to the heart of it with all the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. Can't all be from Van - he uses gentler blows. You'd hate to see Asch in a temper. Even if he's not violent, he'd probably cut someone open.

It's nearly the opposite of Luke, who avoids difficult subjects as much as he can, so that's going to take some getting used to. You're not especially prone to saying things so bluntly, either, but that's more as a result of your position as anything. Can't say anything bad about the members of the household unless you want to get your pay docked, if not thrown out on your ass.

Somehow, it's not a strategy that you think will get you very far with Asch. He doesn't seem like the sort to tolerate sycophants for long at all. Just what you needed, another weird and whacky personality in Kimlasca's royal family to juggle.

"I haven't thought about it," you say, to answer his question. "Hod's... gone, you know? Nothing's going to bring it back. And the few people who are left are pretty used to not having a lord; I'd probably just get in the way."

"Probably." Asch shifts, stretching out his legs and using his arms to help hold his torso up. "I don't think there's much point if you don't love doing it, anyway, and we both know you'd rather be working on fontech in some garage somewhere."

"I'm not that bad, am I?" you say, with a laugh, and he just looks at you as though you've said that the sky isn't really _that_ blue. "Okay, yeah. If you don't love doing it, huh..."

It's something that you think might stick with you, something unexpectedly wise. You hadn't ever really thought about what you _love_ doing - it's always been about what you _had_ to do. You had to avenge your family, you had to take care of Luke...

You like fontech, sure, but you don't know if you're cut out for a career in it. But thinking about it, that and swordplay are about the only things you've done for yourself since you came to Fabre manor. Maybe since before then.

"What do you love doing, then?" you ask, because it can't hurt, and maybe it'll give you a place to start. If it's the kind of thing he'd say, it's probably something he's thought about; he's at least a bit more self-aware than Luke.

There's a quiet moment, as you watch him; his expression twists slowly into a smirk, the sort of look that would send you running for the hills if you saw it on the other side of your sword.

"I think I like changing things," Asch says, and before you can question the ambiguity of it, he stands up in a single, swift motion. "Come on, we should head inside."

"Yeah, sure," you say, pulling yourself up a little less gracefully. As you follow him inside and watch as he stops to negotiate an extra pillow out of the innkeeper, you have to wonder - just _what_ does he intend to change?

Whatever it is, it's going to be interesting. Might as well stick around and watch.


End file.
